Borealism
Borealism is a form of exoticism in which stereotypes are imposed on the Earth's northern regions and cultures (particularly the Nordic and Arctic regions).
The term was inspired by the similar concept of Orientalism, first coined by Edward Said.[2][3] Like Orientalism, Borealism has its roots in eighteenth-century European Romanticism and Romantics' fantasies about distant regions (though wild imaginings about the arctic regions can be traced back into Antiquity). Borealism can include the paradoxical ideas that the North is uniquely savage, inhospitable, or barbaric, and that it is uniquely sublime, pure, or enlightened.[4]
A further form of borealism is the explicit invocation of the boreal by white-supremacist far-right politicians.
Etymology
The term borealism derives from the adjective boreal, which originates from the name of the deity of the north wind Boreas (Βορέας) in Greek mythology.[5] The term denotes what is or comes from in the northern hemisphere. It opposes austral, denoting what lies in or comes from the southern hemisphere, and is also connected to the terms oriental (denoting what lies in the east) and occidental (denoting what lies in the west).
Boreal is not synonymous with northern, the latter qualifying what is north; the first indicates an absolute position, while the second indicates a relative position.
Borealism in art and culture
Examples of borealism include Icelandic financiers being imagined as 'raiding vikings' during the banking boom that culminated in the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis;[6] the traditional music of Scandinavia being seen as distinctively sublime;[7] the stereotyping of Sámi people as strange and magical savages;[8] differences between Canadians and Americans being accounted for by Canadians' proximity to arctic wilderness;[9] and commentators imagining that the music of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós is the product of Iceland's distinctive geology of glaciers and volcanoes.[10]
See also
- Aryan
- Caucasoid
- Dog-whistle politics
- Ethnic groups in Europe
- Genetic history of Europe
- Orientalism
- Nordicism
- Sociology of race and ethnic relations
- White supremacy
References
- ^ Green, Joshua, 'From the Faroes to the World Stage', in The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries, ed. by Fabian Holt, Antti-Ville Kärjä (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 111-29 (p. 123).
- ^ Kristinn Schram, 'Borealism: Folkloristic Perspectives on Transnational Performances and the Exoticism of the North' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2011), p. 8.
- ^ Kristinn Schram, 'Banking on Borealism: Eating, Smelling, and Performing the North', in Iceland and Images of the North, ed. by Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson (Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2011), pp. 305-27 (p. 310).
- ^ Philip V. Bohlman, 'Musical Borealism: Nordic Music and European History', in The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries, ed. by Fabian Holt and Antti-Ville Kärjä (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 33-57 (pp. 39-42). ISBN 9780190603908.
- ^ 'Boreal, adj.', Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), accessed 26 July 2019.
- ^ Kristinn Schram, 'Banking on Borealism: Eating, Smelling, and Performing the North', in Iceland and Images of the North, ed. by Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson (Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2011), pp. 305-27.
- ^ Philip V. Bohlman, 'Musical Borealism: Nordic Music and European History', in The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries, ed. by Fabian Holt and Antti-Ville Kärjä (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 33-57. ISBN 9780190603908.
- ^ Sanna Lehtonen, 'Touring the Magical North – Borealism and the Indigenous Sámi in Contemporary English-language Children’s Fantasy Literature', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 22.3 (2017), 327–44. doi:10.1177/1367549417722091.
- ^ Thomas G. Barnes, '“Canada, True North”: A “Here There” or a Boreal Myth?', American Review of Canadian Studies, 19.4 (1989), 369-79. doi:10.1080/02722018909481462.
- ^ Tore Størvold, 'Sigur Rós: Reception, Borealism, and Musical Style', Popular Music, 37.3 (2018), 371-91 doi:10.1017/S0261143018000442.